Saturday, November 11, 2006

BC Ferries - Hobson's Choice

A week ago, I went to the BC Ferries Feedback page on their website and left the following comment:

As a very frequent passenger (6 trips per week between my daughter and myself), there is no fare relief.

This is true of all the other parents who are required to use BC Ferries to spend time with their children who live on the other side of the water.

In the last 3 years (not including any food purchases from BC Ferries or fuel used to travel to and from the ferry terminal) the cost of travel (walk on fare and parking) has gone from approximately $55 per week to approximately $75 per week. That is an increase of almost 37%.

I would like to see a frequent traveller programme for those of us who use BC Ferries on such a regular basis.

Following is their response:

Thank you for visiting our website and taking the time to share your feedback with us. I appreciate the time you spend travelling on BC Ferries as a parent and your view on a creating a frequent traveller program.

At this time, we do not offer an ongoing discount for regular passenger travel on our three major mainland routes. That said, once we better understand our customers’ travel patterns and the different user groups we serve, we will look at the different opportunities to generate traffic and revenue, which could include more regular discounts. With feedback like yours we can better focus on the needs of our customers.

What BC Ferries does offer regularly are special travel packages and discounts throughout the year. Although there may not be any packages that fully fit your needs as a frequent mainland traveler at this time, we invite you to keep visiting the site in case of future offerings:

http://www.bcferries.com/travel_planning/travel_packages.html

Thank you again for contacting us.

In short, we have your business regardless of what we do, but who knows, you could get lucky and one of our deals just might fit with your travel needs (but don't count on it).